Inside That ‘Game of Thrones’ College Course at UVA

University of Virginia rising senior Thomas O’Neil first heard that his school was offering a “Game of Thrones” course this past spring. “I immediately signed up,” he told Speakeasy in an interview. “I don’t even think it was a two-second delay between me finding it and going online and registering for the class.”

The 24-student class ran for four weeks this summer, covering George R.R. Martin’s first book in “A Song of Ice and Fire” as well as three seasons of the HBO television show. Professor Lisa Woolfork, who has taught at the university for 14 years, said she first came up with the idea last summer.

“These books have been out since the 1990s, and it wasn’t until HBO was able to bring it into the mainstream that we get to bridge the narrative connections of the story to what the series itself is doing,” she told Speakeasy. “I feel like fan culture is a vibrant and important part of the ‘Game of Thrones.’”

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